New Tollway Plans Move Into Fast Lane

July 31, 1993|By David Ibata, Tribune Staff Writer.

Illinois tollway directors showed they are moving full speed ahead by approving $50 million for preliminary design and engineering studies for four new toll roads only weeks after the legislature OKd the projects.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority this week approved the spending for a proposed extension of the Illinois Highway 53 expressway north through Lake County to Illinois Highway 120 and east to the Tri-State Tollway, with a second tollway branching off at Illinois Highway 120 and running northwest to Richmond in McHenry County.

Also approved was planning for a south extension of the North-South Tollway (Interstate Highway 355) from Interstate Highway 55 to Interstate 80 in Will County, and a further extension of that road from I-80 to I-57 near Peotone, the site of the proposed third regional airport.

The Illinois General Assembly approved the new toll roads July 1 and 2 in the last days of the overtime session.

The $50 million in design funds is only seed money compared with the total estimated cost of $2.5 billion to build all four toll roads.

"We needed some amount out there to spend any money, and this ($50 million) is the amount our consulting engineer, Envirodyne Engineers Inc. of Chicago, told us should be enough to start," said Nick Jannite, chief of finance at the tollway authority.

The swift start did not come as good news to opponents of the tollways.

"I'm not surprised that they've started work already. . . . Obviously, we're not happy about that," said Lenore Simmons, village president of Long Grove, a Lake County community opposed to the Illinois 53 extension.

Simmons noted that last week the tollway authority sent its first representatives to a meeting of the Corridor Planning Council of Central Lake County, an organization of municipalities and Lake County that has been advising the Illinois Department of Transportation on the Illinois 53 project.

Long Grove itself is preparing a counter-offensive. It is hiring former U.S. District Judge Susan Getzendanner, now an attorney at a Chicago law firm, as special legal counsel, Simmons said.

The municipality also is looking to fill a newly created, full-time village position of special project employee "to coordinate efforts with other groups who are fighting (the highway)," Simmons said.

Additionally, Long Grove has had new aerial photographs taken of the planned Illinois 53 right of way, and is considering hiring college students to scout the route for archeological remains such as Indian burial sites or endangered animal and plant species that, if found, could put up roadblocks to the project, Simmons said.

The decision to move ahead with the Richmond extension "strikes me as stupid," said Betty Sterling, first vice president and transportation committee chairwoman of the McHenry County Defenders.

"Obviously these people haven't done traffic studies up there, because there is no traffic up there," Sterling said.

She said the proposed centerline of the Richmond tollway "starts in a wetland with two endangered bird and one plant species, moves into another wetland with three or four endangered species, and goes through the McHenry County Glacial Park, which has a nature preserve in it."

"Why are we moving forward so quickly?" Sterling asked. "Who stands to make big money on this?"

Ken Desmaretz, chief tollway engineer, said tollway staff members would be meeting with their counterparts at the Illinois Department of Transportation "to go over where they are, their status, their schedules, and then we'll draw up our own schedule."

Desmaretz figured that it would be at least 1996 before any construction could begin, though protective land purchases by the tollway authority-to head off imminent development on rights of way, or in cases of hardship by property owners-could take place before then.